SearchEngineOptimisation.com, only one way up

For a website to be successful, it needs to have the search engines on its side. As SEO experts, we spend so much time on our content and on making our websites as user-friendly as possible. Whilst users are ultimately the most important factor in a successful website, the search engines are the driving force behind them and if they cannot access your web pages then it makes the job of users finding your site much more difficult. The secret to making your site easy for both search engines and human web users to pick up is mostly down to the initial set up and maintenance of the site. Techniques also need to be applied to every page of your website, as even if a search engine crawler can pick up a page it does not automatically mean it can pick them all up. Poor navigation between pages is also a negative aspect for users when they do get through to a landing page.

Anybody offering search engine optimization services will know that access issues are basic problems and should not happen if you are using expert companies. However, the unfortunate matter is that they do occur. On the positive side, they are not that difficult to identify and understand and thankfully, not that difficult to rectify. There are of course many reasons for poor access to websites, and at SearchEngineOptimisation.co.uk we know the main culprits are sometimes the ones staring us in the face.

Links are everything and if a search engine or user cannot link to your site, it is pretty much useless. Whilst all good intentions are made in the beginning to set up strong and organic links, they do not stay that way of their own accord. Links which are broken or link to the wrong place are not good for your site reputation. Users will get irritated and not revisit, whilst search engines will penalise you for not keeping on top of your website optimisation.

Page loading speed can also have a negative effect your website for a number of reasons. For starters, if a web page takes a long time to load then a user will get bored and not wait around for it to load.

Similarly, a search engine does not favour sites which have large files and content that take a long time to download. Their reasons for this are that they know it is not user-friendly and that it could also be mistakenly perceived that it is the search engine that is loading at a poor pace. It is worth noting that this does not always apply with image and video files, as search engines are sophisticated enough to understand that these type of files take longer to download. Human users also know that larger content such as this can have a short delay. If you cannot avoid large web pages then consider making two pages out of the one content, to combat the problem.

It may seem hard to believe, but a lot of companies lose out on sales and revenue right at the last minute when it comes to online business. By this we predominantly mean the final transaction page or as it is more commonly known, the checkout. It seems ludicrous that a company would be so haphazard that they would lose everything at the last moment, yet it happens more and more. The reasoning behind this is usually that companies spend so much time and effort on optimising the rest of their website that they simply forget about the final process. This, along with the misconception that once somebody has got to the payment process they will not back out. This is probably the biggest mistake any company can make.

Ease of navigation is one of the most important factors within any website, yet it is particularly important within websites which depend on actual online sales. Quite often, users want to confirm they want to buy something and then continue shopping on the rest of the site. Ensure that no matter where in the shopping process the user is, there are clear links back to the main pages. Including a ‘continue shopping’ button is one of the most common ways of doing this. Your internal link building strategies will play a key part in your site navigation, so ensure you are not only creating strong links, but also managing them along the way. Link building is an ongoing process and if left unattended, it can affect your internal navigation.

It is also important that a user can always see what they have already placed aside to order, or put in their basket. There are many occasions where a customer may put the same product in several times by mistake as it is not clear what exactly they have confirmed. When you are offering a service you need to be constantly communicating with users through your website and making sure they know that you are working with them, not against them.

When it comes to the final payment process, this is usually where the website lets you down. Loading page speed is usually one of the major complaints and a lot of websites let their customers down by having a page which takes ages to load when it comes to the final pages, or worst still, crashes completely. At SearchEngineOptimisation.co.uk, we know that page loading speed is one of the most important things when it comes to producing a user friendly site, and we can help you optimise your company’s website to reflect this.

Lastly, make sure that you have strong security measures in place. Where personal customer details are concerned you can never be too careful and the last thing you want is any spam sites or hackers getting information they should not be able to access. Not only should you have security, you should ensure there are clear security or padlock signs on the web page, as this will add customer reassurance.

Before engaging SEO consultants most people already have a website up and running. In some cases it will have been established in one form or another for years, and in others only live for a few weeks. It could be that an older site has been overtaken by the competition or a new site needs a leg up to get noticed by search engines and potential customers alike. Professional SEO services can almost always help in either case, but if you do happen to be starting out from scratch, there are a few considerations that can help get you off on the right footing.

First of all, choose your domain name carefully. This is the main part of the URL, like examplesite.com. You can choose both the top level domain (the .com, .net, or .co.uk to name a few of the options available) and the name. ICANN-compliant domain name registration sites like GoDaddy.com can tell you whether or not the domain you want is available and register it for you for a fee. Most SEO consultants will tell you to go for a .com top level domain if possible, and a co.uk if not. The former is considered the most appropriate for businesses and also the most memorable to customers.

It’s often worth buying both if you can, especially if the ones you want aren’t expensive.  Otherwise someone can come along and register examplesite.co.uk and poach some of your confused customers. You can either leave the secondary domain name parked and more or less empty or redirect it to your .com page. This is the best option by far and professional SEO services can help you set up the redirect if you need a hand with the technical stuff.

When considering the rest of the domain name, there are two paths you can follow. Some SEO consultants advocate one over the other, but both approaches can be equally successful. The first option is to choose something eye-catching and very easy to remember like GoDaddy did. The second is to pick a name that describes your business, including the right keywords. SearchEngineOptimisation.co.uk is a prime example.

Next, find a good hosting company. When choosing the right package for you allow generously for bandwidth remembering that website traffic will hopefully rise. Make sure the company go for will automatically tell you when you’re approaching that month’s bandwidth limit and give you the option to upgrade immediately. Otherwise your site could go down without warning. Your customers won’t like it and neither will your SEO consultants!

Pay attention to the content management systems (CMS) on offer as well. It should allow you to quickly and simply update the site and add new content whenever you like and create a pleasant, visually attractive effect with all the e-Commerce features you will need. Enquire at a few different hosting companies before making the choice. Whichever one you decide on, make sure of getting a Service Level Agreement (SLA) in writing. It should cover things like unexpected access problems and give a concrete minimum percentage of uptime you can expect. We offer a unique SEO CMS which is fully SEO-friendly whilst also providing all the functionality and ease of use you should expect.